greed and loathing on Little Torch and Big Pine Keys, and then there’s Key West

Depress ctrl and + keys together to increase zoom/font size; depress ctrl and – keys together to reduce

Correction to recent post, in which I wrote that Capt. David Dipre works for the U.S. Coast Guard. He works for Florida Fish & Wildlife. I cannot find a photo of Diprie online.

A few years back, then Lieutenant Diprie starred in a documentary film produced by the Bernstein family of Key West, promoting that the Bernsteins and the Walsh family, who had developed and owned Sunset Key, develop nearby Key Wisteria Island to be Sunset Key Deux. Later, Dipree altered a trespass incident report he had filled out, after arresting a man for being on Wisteria Island. The alteration was inserting a photo of a No Trespassing sign from the other side of the island from where the trespass allegedly happen, to make it look in the incident report that the alleged trespasser had seen the sign before coming onto the island. That case was best covered by Key West the Newspaper.

George Neugent

During a County Commission meeting in the Marathon Government Center a few years back, I heard County Commissioner George Neugent say David Dipree was his good friend and praised him. During citizen comments I educated Commissioner Neugent on what he might not know about his good friend, whom I didn’t know from Adam’s house cat.

I ran against George in 2006 and 2010. He won by a 3/1 vote in 2006, and by a 4-1 vote in 2010. I figured the good folks up that way wanted him to be their county commissioner. So, I suppose a rotten coconut dream last night told me I’m done running for county commissioner up that way.

In that regard are several recent comments below about George on www.bigpinekey.com ‘s popular Coconut Telegraph bitch and praise blog, which I was prompted to peruse after dreaming just before dawn today of a rotten coconut I needed to throw away.

George Neugent expects us to actually vote for him when he stuck us with grinder pumps and these lovely Little Torch Cottages. Please, when was the last time he even listened to his constituents?

new Lucky’s Landing under construction, I drove by the other day, it is further along and looks like something designed and built by pure greed

Lucky’s Landing before it was bulldozed and cleared for development, after which the owner, who had been lured into doing it by “friends”, who were his business partners, lost it after it went bankrupt, and then someone else ended up with it and greed indeed finally did win out, as is plainly evident by driving by today and looking at it

Now that George Neugent has decided he is going to run again for office. Please, everyone, don’t let him get into office again. After the way he treated his constituents over the sewer/grinder pump issues, he is not worthy. Let him run for office in Marathon where he lives. He clearly doesn’t give a hoot about residents in the Lower Keys.

[Neugent seeks fifth term on the county commission] “Friends have badgered me to throw my hat in the ring for one more,” Neugent said. “And there are some loose ends that need to be tied up.” (Keynoter)

That’s right George, we’re going to hand you your hat, that’s the loose end. Thanks for you service and all, but bye bye!

This whole grinder pump issue is something like a crock of shit. I sure do not want one in my yard.
“A crock of shit” derives from an ancient Roman custom that coincidentally took place in Roman times. It referred literally to a pot into which people would excrete if they were particularly bored by whichever freelance philosopher happened to be talking rubbish at the time. The Roman empire employed crock-monitors who were each assigned to a philosopher, and it was their job to monitor the pot (or crock). Should the crock become full, it would be presented to the philosopher, who was obliged, by law, to announce that it bore a remarkable resemblance to himself, thus proclaiming he was full of crap and was, in fact, talking a crock of shit.
“I am talking a crock of shit” ~Socretes 429 BC

Also from the Coconut Telegraph:

After reading Donnelly’s letter that appeared in The Key West Citizen: “Eimers’ death deserves independent investigation”, it dawned on me that a number of serious mishaps have occurred on Chief Lee’s watch. The latest being the alleged child molestation charge against one of Lee’s officers.

Who hired this chief and why hasn’t anyone called upon him to give a full account of the systemic problems that continue in his department? It appears that he is going to be an extremely costly liability for the citizens of Key West.

Donie Lee, hired in 2007, maybe 2008, by City Manager Jim Scholl, with the City Commission’s approval; the six city commissioners and the mayor, who presides over and has one vote at City Commission meetings, are where the buck stops with Lee, and with everything else going on in Key West

On Charles Eimers, Tim Gratz of Key West wrote to me yesterday:

Do you have a list of all the KWPD officers at the scene of the Eimer’s death?

I replied:

No, on KWPD officers, I suppose you could get that info from KWPD through a Public Information Request. Maybe Naja Girard has all of their names. I read there were 14 of officers ultimately involved, then I read there were 13. They must have not had any better thing to do that day than help apprehend an unarmed suspected homeless man. What an indictment not only of KWPD but of the seven elected city officials who make and incite the city’s aggressive homeless policy, and a second indictment for the magnificent seven laying low after they knew something awful had happened on “the southernmost beach” that wonderful day.

You going to get a sloan for mayor signs if so put one on the picket fence in front of my place!

I replied:

Hi, Mike – thanks, but as I wrote in a few posts, I detest “Vote For Me!” campaign signs, which litter the city. Perhaps I will dream up something fetching for Daddy Bones to promote my campaign.

I really do need help setting up a campaign Facebook page, which I apparently do not have the smarts to figure out how to do in the way other people do it. I don’t know whether a Sloan for Mayor page or a group is better. I am not yet happy with the Sloan for Mayor group page, which I started about ten days ago.

I saw a Craig Cates for Mayor FB page yesterday, hosted by his wife Cheryl. He had gotten around 1,100 likes. I figured that number might triple, or more, in time.

I’m doing what I know how to do well, as long as the angels keep riding my ass about it. I never was, and never will be, a politician. I always felt, and have written quite a few times, that it’s on people who want to see me in office to try to get me votes, while I go about doing that in my own way.

Looks to me the city is in a big mess, in various ways, with no change there in sight. I don’t see that changing if Craig is reelected. I might not make any difference, either, if I am elected, but it might be a lot more interesting (exciting might also be a good word to use). It might draw a lot of attention to Key West, including a lot of new (fresh) attention from quarters previously not interested in the city.

It most likely will draw major media attention; I mean, just how improbable (unbelievable might work, too, bizarre also) my being mayor would be. When pigs fly would take on an entirely new meaning.

Maybe I will dream about this casserole.

Sloan

Mike wrote:

maybe you should take a page from capt tonys book? Like Buffet sang once EVERYBODY GOT A COUSIN IN MIAMI. I can introduce you to mine and have you on your way to Columbia in a few days ! with that kinda experience you would be Shoo in for mayors seat!

I wrote:

Dang, Mike, I ask for help, and you send me to study under a drug cartel? Most likely, once arriving in Columbia I charter a sea plane to fly me east into the least civilized place of the Colombian part of the Amazon Basin, where the aircraft lands on the most remote river to be found and lets me out on the bank with my backpack, tree hammock, rope, knife, machete, bow and arrow, quinine tablets and water purification tabs. From ground zero, I head into the jungle hoping to be found by a tribe of aborigines not yet been fucked up by white faced-people, aka civilized humans, who take me in and let me live out my remaining days with people who most likely know more about God and Mother Nature than all the priests Rome sent to South America all added up and multiplied by a billion. Or maybe I am found by headhunters looking for another white man’s head to shrink. Or by cannibals. Plenty of the the latter two in Key West. At least Amazon exit relatively quick compared to love kills slowly routine I know all too well.

Mike wrote:

funny u saying tribe not fucked up. saw article bout amazon tribe never been contacted that were scared shitless by modern folks flying plane over them. if u got time tomorrow get with me i need some advice that you are uniquely able to give. chillin rest of night need down time too much going on feel lost in amazon myself! Hate when life gets too serious!

I wrote:

Rightly so they were scared shitless, white-faced people bad news for natural people, which I knew even before I saw “The Emerald Forest” in 1985. North American natives learned it the worst way after their ancestors didn’t kill every white-faced person who stepped off a sailing ship on “the new world”.

Tomorrow afternoon or evening best time for me to visit, I can come to Daddy Bones on my trusty imitation horse.

Was on Duval Street this afternoon and again tonight. I thought from this afternoon that Margartaville would get the loudest joint prize today, but I did not go down into the sin arena until tonight. First place going away went to The Lazy Gecko, and Sloppy Joe’s tied Margartaville for 2nd spot. Cowboy Bill’s side bar was darn loud tonight, too, mainly because their band set up on the end of the bar next to Angela Street, totally outside, no walls at all to hold in the sound. The singers and instruments actually were okay, it was the bass underneath it all blasting the neighborhood that made me want to flee. Not a thump, thump, thump bass. Just a deep loud guitar base, perhaps not even a guitar but a simulator. If they had turned that down about half, it would have been okay and their customers, few as they were, might have enjoyed the music more.

If I found the right tribe down there in the Amazon, maybe it could be persuaded to do some weird shit in the spirit realms to shut up the white-faced people long enough for them to hear the music of the spheres and other melodies their ancestors stopped hearing ages ago, because they forgot how to be quiet and listen in their haste to rule and wreck as much of this planet as they could before they left it feet first, face down, or however.

Ciao, Kemosabe,

Tonto

Mike wrote:

I could hear the band from seadog that’s bar at cowboybills where where salsa loca was one nite all the way to bourbon pub riding my scooter which is pretty loud itself. imagine how loud other side toward whitehead must have been. Really too loud!

I wrote:

The King, I would have shut down The Happy Gecko for the rest of tonight, and would have told Sloppy Joes, Margaritaville and Cowboy Bill’s of that, and to tone their’s down a couple of notches, if they wanted to stay open tonight. I imagine the short and even long term effect would have been inspiring, and would have allowed the mayor and city commissioners to spend time this coming Tuesday night on, say, doing something on Truman Waterfront, which will make the city money instead of suck the city dry, which is the present plan of action out there.

Jerry Weinstock, M.D., Psychiatry, wrote yesterday:

SLOAN: The Key West we LOVED is fading into
the mists of corruption of an infinite variety,
and total greed and lack of humane respect.
we have our memories. Jerry

Sloan Bashinsky Any chance, Freeda, you are unduly biased due to having worked for my father’s company for most of your adult life, then you went off late in life and got yourself hitched up with one of his other old valued employees who walked right in the rain pretty good, I heard tell from Herman The Faulk, aka Chemical Man thanks to all those doctors pumping him full of pharmacy shelf stuff made in artificial medicine plants not particularly related to plants what grow in the ground. Maybe some day they make a movie about Herman living longer than all of us because he was pickled before his time. If I get elected, you folks from my way back when will get invites to the coronation, probably won’t be at any place a potato chip route salesman or saleslady would not just naturally want to kick back in. A place I have in mind serves Pabst Blue Ribbon beer; I bet there ain’t too many folks down here in Key Weird who drank much of that in their formative years. I remember when I could get a case, 24 cans, for $5. Or maybe it was $4. Back before I was legal to buy it; a place over in Crestwood sold it to us out the back door. I believe the statute of limitation probably ran on that by now. LIke anyone down here in this booze heaven would worry about it. Ya’ll come!

This back and forth below will take a while to read, but is somewhat typical of what happens when Tim and I discuss God and the Bible and politics. Some people might find the metaphysical parts interesting, or might not. At the very bottom is a link to the first Key West the newspaper article (www.thebluepaper.com), which contains the video that blue the Charles Eimers case wide open.

Tim wrote:

Being a strict Biblical constructionist, as you phrase it, do you have any scriptural basis for your statement that Noah’s ark crash-landed on Cow Key? I find that theory udderly ridiculous.
Tim
Speaking of Methuseleh (who was old by anyone’s definition), did you read the survey reported in AARP magazine that both men and women agree that men are “old” at 70 but they disagree re when women get “old”. Women believe that women are “old” at 75, i.e. five years after men, whereas men believe that women are old at 65, five years before men become old. Another version of the age-old battle of the sexes, I guess.
One of my favorite riddles is asking people how many different species of animals Moses brought on the ark. Many say “I don’t know”, not catching that it was Noah’s ark, not Moses.
In that same light is the question, “How do you pronounce the capitol of Kentucky, is it “LOUIE VILLE” or is it “LOUIS VILLE?” The answer of course is Frankfurt.
Another riddle is to ask what presidents, if any, are not buried on American soil. Smart people get the answer in thirty seconds or less.
Sorry for the trivia.

I replied:

Well, a little poetic license was taken about Noah’s ark crash-landing on Cow Key, but the Conch genetic inbreeding, and its resultant thinking and behaving, do seem downwind related to the Adam and Eve and the Noah inbreeding stories, which make either the Bible out be a tad short on facts, if not a tad short on truth, in those arenas, or God, or the angels God had in charge of this planet and its alleged to be dominant species, out to be idiots; which, perhaps they were, as later in the Old Testament, God, or angels of the Lord, inspired Moses to lay down breeding laws which did provided good common sense genetics.

You dodged the obvious inbreeding mess in those two Genesis stories, which I have heard people Bible strict constructionists say must be viewed literally to avoid the wrath of God.

Back to the future, this Key West on the Edge: Inventing the Conch Republic book I’m reading ought to be required reading for every school kid attending Key West schools, although probably too late for the book to make any significant headway with adults. The author really did his research, lots, heaps actually, of footnotes.All along Key West was wide open, fast and loose, live and left live.

The only place I see, so far, where the author may have dropped the ball is in his description of the lucrative ship wrecker business. He does not even mention, so far, that it was rumored, if not actually true, that some wreckers put out lanterns in the ocean and on the reef to intentionally lure or steer ships onto the reef, so the wreckers could make even more money saving ships and their cargoes and human lives than the natural course of events would produce. [Last night, Arnaud Girard, a distressed-ship salver himself, told me there was nothing to those rumors.]

Perhaps that’s why the city government to this day, ref. the today’s Key West Citizen Editorial on Bill Butler Park being built without complying with the city’s permit rules, views itself as separate and apart from living by its own ordinances, while sticking same with relish to private citizens and businesses. Perhaps under the table payoffs, in whatever currency is sufficient, spices the Conch chowder a little more.

I’m going to have to stop typing and find a passage in Key West on Edge to type in here, with a few small parts taken out to save my lazy fingers typing what doesn’t seem as relevant. It shows just how well the author pegged the city and someone “dear” to everyone’s heart even today.

Sloan

************************

Key West on the Edge,
Chapter 6
From pages 119-120:

In the “Bubba Bust” trial of the mid-1980s, Raymond “Tito” Casamayor, Key West’s Chief of Detectives and Deputy Police Chief, was tried in U.S. District Court, along with thirteen other defendants, for racketeering related to a cocaine smuggling operation based out of the Key West Police Department.
The prosecutors emphasized that the police department was awash with “graft and corruption” and labeled Police Chief Larry Rodriguez as an “unindicted” co-conspirator. A convicted drug dealer testified during the triaql that the had delivered cocaine, hidden in containers from Burger King and chicken Unlimited, to Casamayor at the police station. The verdict determined that under federal law the Key Weset Police Department was a “continuing criminal enterprise” …
Also arrested in the Bubba Bust trial were the prominent Key West lawyer Michael Cates and his wife, Janet Hill Cates. A former Key West High School football star and Monroe County Attorney, Cates had defended several clients accused of involvement in the drug business. He also had been the attorney for Historic tours of America …Edwin Swift III, one of its owners, testified in Cates’ defense. Swift said of Cates, his “word can be trusted, he’s honest, and he obeys the law” … the jury found both husband and wife guilty … Cates was sentenced to fifteen years on three felony charges, including his function as the legal adviser to a major cocaine operation, and Janet received ten years for selling cocaine …”
One might think Key West’s tourism boosters would have feared that the publicity around the drug busts would tarnish the island’s image and decrease its appeal for tourists. David Wolkowsky, however, offered a different theory. He suggested, instead, that the scandal might actually help, noting, “Intrigue, you know, is what Key West is about.”

*********************

I called Todd German about the Michael and Linda Cates trial, and Todd said he did not think that Cates family was/is related to Mayor Craig Cates’ family, although there might be a distant relationship from way back when their ancestors lived in the Bahamas before migrating to Key West.

Earlier in the Key West on the Edge is some mention of Captain Tony Tarracino not having been a Conch, having fled from New England to Key West because he owed the Mafia money, having had seven wives and many children of the legitimate and illegitimate kind, and having run for mayor several times, maybe six?, before he got elected.

Sloan

Tim wrote:

Interesting excerpt. The Bubba bust was interesting to be sure.
As I recall the DOJ [US Department of Justice] had designated the KWPD as a RICO organization.
I will have to check out the book.

Did I ever tell you my Malaysia synchronicity story?
About a year or so ago I was on the Internet on the little café in Winn Dixie. The oriental looking man who had been sitting next to me left leaving behind two books. When he did not return after 30 minutes I picked up the books. One was about the history of Malaysia and about the assassination of one of its earliest leaders. Well, I read/scanned the book for 30 minutes or so then I returned to the Internet the big news story that popped up was about a huge earthquake in Malaysia! I had not thought about Malaysia for years!

So what is the cosmic significance of that coincidence?

Best

I wrote:

I imagine the angels can tell you what the Malaysian stuff means, since I imagine they arranged it for you :-).

Tim wrote:

Yeah it was way too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.
But I fail to see any metaphysical meaning to it.
Obviously no connection to the current mystery of the missing plane since it was a year ago.
Great picture of Connie in your blog today.
Do you have a list of all the KWPD officers at the scene of the Eimer’s death?

I wrote:

Quit guessing or wondering, ask God about the Malaysia thing. It’s time everyone quits guessing. It’s time everyone starts getting information from Above. Way past time, actually. What a wailing and gnashing of teeth that blessed event would bring, as well as some happiness, depending on what was asked and what came back.

Once I read where NASA lost one of its satellites, and an Australian aborigine walked into a satellite tracking station somewhere in Australia and told the mutants working there where to look in the sky for the missing satellite, and then the aborigine was gone. The mutants looked where directed, found the missing satellite. Perhaps an aborigine knows where the missing 787 is.

No, on KWPD officers, I suppose you could get that info from KWPD through a Public Information Request. Maybe Naja Girard has all of their names. I read there were 14 of officers ultimately involved, then I read there were 13. They must have not had any better thing to do that day than help apprehend an unarmed suspected homeless man. What an indictment not only of KWPD but of the seven elected city officials who make and incite the city’s aggressive homeless policy, and a second indictment for the magnificent seven laying low after they knew something awful had happened on “the southernmost beach” that wonderful day.